Cybernator review - Super Nintendo

The future. At the tender age of twenty-two, Jake was drafted into the Pacific State Marine Corps. As he nears completion of his Assault SUIT schooling, Jake and fellow students begin to realise exactly why the training has been so intense. During the early years of Jake's recruitment, the Earth enters into a bitter war with a distant planet on the far side of the moon. According to some recently-released files the Earth has been running low on fossil fuels for some time and the opposing planet's governing forces are doing their utmost to take it for themselves. As a final solutiuon the two planets began to compete for the territorial rights to the moon.

Backed by the hopes and fears of the entire human race, Jake embarks on his first mission. One that he sincerely hopes won't be his last and with you at the controls, the chances are it won't be...

What the Mean Machines staff thought

Cybernator comes with the most awesome presentation this side of a CD game. But does it make it great? As Tim says, the overdose of text and intermission screens may prove an annoyance when all you really want to do is play the game. However, Cybernator is a strange beast all round, the feel of the game is very different from the accepted blaster format in that every obstacle requires more thought than usual. This isn't like the swarm swatting antics usually found but more of an excercise in cool and calculated precision. In this context the idea of a story unfolding as the game progresses works very well. Konami are obviously attempting something different and, in my view, it's a welcome change. I love the Manga-style approach and it transforms the game into something more wholesome than expected. What's more, the Assault SUIT itself is quite an intricate character to control but responds extremely well to the commands made from the joypad. Without wanting to spoil things too much for you, the plot of the game can also be affected depending on Jake's performance - which adds further to the game's lasting appeal. It may not provide the pure adrenalin rush that Contra Spirits gives but Cybernator still rates as one of THE top platform shoot 'em ups available for the Super NES and I can't think why anyone would be dumb enough to pass this up. You've got to get it!

We've been slobbering in anticiaption of this latest Konami blaster for ages now, and when I finally got to play the game my initial reactions were so enthusiastic they're unprintable here! Cybernator is, quite simply, an AWESOME game in just about every respect. But for me it has one fairly major flaw: the flow of the this hyper hard blaster is often interrupted by the quite useless text which flashes up and freezes the game! Sadly, my reactions to this are unprintable anywhere. There's nothing quite so annoying as finding yourself in the middle of some completely topper mega blast frenzy when some jerk pops up on the screen and tells you something you knew already! Not only that, he takes a good three lines to say it, and by then you've completely lost the flow of the game. Having said that, a major reason why this is so annoying is that the game itself is just so amazing to play! Were the graphics, sound and gameplay anything less than the complete brilliance they actually are I might forgive the intrusion, but with Cybernator all you want to do is blast, blast BLAST! If Konami had thought to include an option allowing you to turn off the speech this game would have won my highest accolade. As it stands, it's still a brilliant - if slightly flawed - blaster you can't afford to miss!

Retrospective comments

The Japanese have a real love for big robots, but this hasn't always crossed over into the West. Thankfully Cybernator (AKA: Assault Suit Valken) - a follow up to the Megadrive Assault Suit Leynos/Target Earth - was one of the ones that made the jump from East to West and remains one of the more memorable SNES shooters.

Even today the graphics are impressive - big, clean and supremely detailed sprites battle it out over gorgeously-realised terrain. The music is also of a high standard, and the sound effects are suitably punchy and loud. Controlling the mech takes some getting used to, but once you've got the hang of it you really do believe you're in charge of a massive, hulking death machine.

NCS updated the formula on the Saturn with Assault Suit Leynos 2 but the SNES version remains the best of the three and is a game you really should look to buy it as soon as possible.

Jaz's Sheep - 02 Jun 2010, 14:22 GMT

This was a funky game and no doubt. The overall feel of the game was top dollar, and the manga-esq dialogues mid-level were mint and something fresh back then.

Si - 15 Sep 2012, 09:55 GMT

I remember being blown away by this back in the day. I must hunt a copy down and play it again. I seem to remember it gets quite tough.